There are many Maya traps on the path of spiritual practice. Supreme Master Ching Hai reminds us that when we practice to a certain degree, we will feel the mind is like a mirror that can reflect anything. We feel we seem to have got something, but cannot make use of it. Sakyamuni Buddha said this is like a man having nightmares in sleeping. Even though he was aware that it was just a nightmare in which he got arrested, killed and beaten, but he could not control it or run away from it. This is the same as when we encounter Maya, which is a sort of alert. However, Maya is also illusion.

How can we avoid being used and led astray by Maya? Sakyamuni Buddha said, at the ending times of Dharma, Maya will make use of people and teach them all kinds of confusing methods. Buddha told Ananda to pass these teaching to all beings after his Nirvana so that they would not be influenced and used by Maya. You should see clearly all these fifty kinds of Maya and memorize them well. Then, wherever you go in the future, you will not be shaken by these. No matter what methods people talk about, we will be able to discern it and not be misled and get lost.